Whether to weatherboard

With the roof on and better than expected weather in the colder months work carried on outside. Our original plan entailed cladding the first floor in wood. As part of our ‘Cornish-New-England’ theme. Allowing it to age naturally. In theory, this is low maintenance. In reality, I had visions of having to regularly pressure wash and treat it.

The architects were flexible in their specification of how we’d clad the house on our planning application. However, a planning approval condition required us to submit example materials to be used before building could commence. At this point, our builder spotted a potential issue.

Building regulations require wood cladding to be treated with a fireproof coating if another property is within three metres. The theory being that if the other property sets alight the fire could easily spread. Not a huge issue in itself, lots of fire-proofing techniques and options exist. Sadly, none of them would achieve the look we were after.

Enter the new contender. Despite it being cliche and overly popular on new-builds, I really wanted Cedral Lap Weatherboarding: Zero hassle, great range of colours, never needs to be painted, resistant to rot and things growing on it, and only needs rain to clean it. What’s not to like!

 “More extreme funding methods were required…”